Strange Creatures
by Mailsnail
Summary: Something terrible lives in the Fabray mansion. A modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Super late Faberry week entry?
1. Prologue

Strange Creatures

On the surface, the Fabray family wasn't a particularly interesting one. They kept very much to themselves and most of the people living in the nearby town of Colville, Washington actually knew very little about them outside of the basics. Russell Fabray was a well off businessman from a well off family that had lived in the Fabray mansion for 4 generations. His wife Judy was the daughter of the old town preacher, very prim and proper, always immaculately presented and involved in a number of charities with great dedication. Their oldest daughter Francine was head cheerleader and valedictorian, married off young to a successful banker. Their younger daughter Quinn was much the same as her sister, pretty and popular and all the things one might expect from the daughter of such a rich and admired couple.

The Fabray mansion was not in fact in Colville itself, but buried deep within the woods that surrounded the town. The house sat atop a cliff, grey bricks and jet black roof tiles, flying buttresses jutting awkwardly from its side like crooked limbs. It looked very much like a great black beast perched on the cliff edge, overlooking the woods and the town that lay down in valley. Back when Francine and Quinn were younger the house enjoyed many visitors, usually for one of the charity fund-raisers held by Judy Fabray. However, in later years the fund-raisers ceased altogether and it was a rare day indeed that saw anyone but the Fabray family and the household staff anywhere near the house.

Despite their apparent normality, for the townspeople of Colville the Fabray family had long been a prime source of gossip. Perhaps it was just because they were rich, or well-known, or perhaps the thing that made the Fabray's such a popular source of gossip was the mysteries that surrounded them. Though they appeared to be very much the perfect family, rich but socially conscious, good Christian people, there was so much the people of Colville didn't know about them. And so the gossip that surrounded the family and their most austere and secluded mansion intensified. In the fall of 2000 the gossip reached its peak, when rumours sprang up in the bars that Judy Fabray was on her deathbed with some mysterious disease and Russell was nowhere to be found.

In December that year, the rumours seemed to be all but confirmed, when the town of Colville hosted the funeral of Judy Fabray, attended by old friends who knew nothing of why the woman had passed away at the age of just 46, as well as even more people who had never really been her friends at all, but were simply curious to see the remaining elusive Fabray family members up close. The assembled rubberneckers found themselves quite disappointed to discover that neither Russell nor Francine Fabray were in attendance.

And so, for the next few months, both the Fabray mansion and Quinn Fabray, in the absence of her disappeared father, deceased mother and indifferent sister, fell into silence, with only the staff to keep the Fabray household from falling into disrepair. For the townspeople, the mystery of exactly what went on in the Fabray mansion that made it all go so wrong was a common talking point in the bars and around the water coolers. Quinn Fabray, still just 19 years old, seemed entirely disinterested in the gossip and was rarely seen by anyone but the 10 people she still employed in the upkeep of the Fabray mansion.

The most curious thing about the gossip that surrounded the Fabray family for so many years was the day it all ended. On the 12th July 2001, the once healthy rumour-mill suddenly and inexplicably ceased to turn. If anyone were to ask the people of Colville about the Fabray family and the mansion in the woods that served as their home after that date, they would receive nothing but blank stares. Even the household staff were no longer remembered by any of the people who lived in Colville, not even by their family and friends.

The town of Colville simply ceased to recall that the Fabrays, the house in the woods and the ten Fabray employees had ever existed and moved on to gossiping about other things while the eleven people who occupied the house up on the cliffs were never seen again.

Perhaps more curiously, around the same time that the Fabrays were forgotten by the inhabitants of Colville, gossip sprang up surrounding the arrival in the town of one Holly Holliday. Miss Holliday was something of a mystery to anyone who happened to have heard of her. No one was entirely sure exactly who she was, where she was from, or even her age. Some said she was a bounty hunter, while others insisted she was more of a rich eccentric vigilante, while even more people were certain that she was a sort of Indiana Jones style archaeologist, hunting for lost treasures. A few hysterical conspiracy theorists would tell anyone that cared to listen that she was a secret agent and some slightly more hysterical internet commentators were quite convinced that she was a sorceress. All that was really known about Holly Holliday was that she was a woman who had done a great deal in life and been to a great deal of places, even if exactly what those activities and places were was unclear.

In more recent years, the most popular source of conversation in the town of Colville was what was known locally as the 'Beast of Colville Forest', an enormous monster that supposedly devoured anyone who might happen to get lost out in the woods. Of course most sane people didn't really believe that the beast existed. Despite this, just like Big-foot and the Loch Ness monster, the beast became a popular local legend, despite a distinct lack of evidence for its existence. Indeed, any time anyone happened to go missing in the area, or a local farmer lost any livestock, it was common for people to insist that this was due to the Beast of Colville Forest.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

20th November, 2011

In the darkness of the wild and secluded Colville forest, a little black Honda Civic trundled through the trees, complaining loudly as it navigated the rocky trail. The moon was full and particularly bright that night, casting a silvery light over the thick forest. Inside the relative safety of the car were two men, partaking in the most popular of past-times for married couples; arguing. The two men were Mr and Mr Berry, Hiram and Leroy, Colville residents of some 8 years. Exactly how the pair had managed to get so spectacularly lost within 20 miles of their own home was unclear, and happened to be the source of the current heated exchange.

"I told you, satellite navigation is a crutch for people who don't know how to read maps." Leroy insisted, waggling his finger at his husband as though he was chastising a small child. "If you have a satnav you don't need to know how to read a map, and if you can't read a map what do you do if your satnav breaks? You get lost that's what."

Hiram rolled his eyes and batted away the hand that was still pointing accusingly in his face. "You know, that's a really good point. See, we don't have a satnav and now we're lost. So I guess you just shot your own anti-satnav point in the foot." He snapped.

"We aren't lost. We have a map and I know how to read a map, so how could we be lost?" Leroy gestured towards the map sitting uselessly in his lap.

"Oh, yeah. Great, brilliant, we have a map so we clearly aren't lost, even though we have no idea where we, which makes the map useless." said Hiram. He clutched the steering wheel tighter in an attempt to keep himself from hurling the offending map out of the window.

"Well, we would know where we were if you hadn't managed to drive us to the middle of nowhere, when we were so close to home. I mean, this isn't even a road!"

Leroy shifted awkwardly in his seat and craned his neck to inspect the thick forest that was all that could be seen in every direction. The car rumbled over the uneven trail.

"Well, either way, I have no damn idea where we are and you're right, this is _not_ a road." Hiram huffed irritably.

The little Honda wobbled from side to side as it passed over a particularly rough patch of ground, before a sudden, almighty bang from the left side of the car jolted them off the trail. Hiram struggled with the wheel for a moment as the car tipped sideways dangerously. Trees loomed towards them as they careened through the thick bush and Leroy grabbed at the wheel with a yelp of horror. Despite their attempts to change course, a large and sturdy tree completely failed to move out of their path. The car smashed into the tree with a great bang and the car's engine readily wrapped itself around the tree trunk. A great plume of smoke erupted from the mangled engine and the car spluttered for a few moments, then quite definitively gave up the ghost.

The car doors crashed open and spilled the two coughing, yelling men onto the ground. Hiram rolled onto his back with a groan of pain.

"Hiram! Hiram, are you okay?" Leroy scrambled up from where he had gracelessly hit the ground and threw himself over the ruined hood of his car to get to where his husband was lying. "Hiram!" He squeaked again when he found himself leaning over the other man's prostrate form.

"Ow." Hiram replied loudly, squeezing his eyes shut. "That kinda hurt."

Leroy let out a relieved, if slightly hysterical, laugh. "I'll bet it did." Leroy buried his head in Hiram's chest for a moment.

"You OK?" Hiram asked through laboured breaths, awkwardly wrapping an arm around Leroy's back.

"Me? I'm fine. What about you?" Leroy leant back to inspect him.

"Well, I'm not getting anywhere fast." He squeezed his eyes shut and winced as his husband pulled back to assess the damage. "No idea what happened but my leg hurts like a motherf-"

"Oh god! Oh dear, oh that's not good." Leroy spluttered, taking in the sorry sight that was Hiram's left leg. His foot was bent at an angle that was almost entirely displeasing to the eyes.

"Yep, that's what I thought." Hiram agreed. Leroy's eyes remained fixed on the unpleasant sight of his husbands foot, his mouth half-open and his brow furrowed. "Might be a good time to call triple A. Oh, and you know, an ambulance."

"Right!" Leroy said sharply. "Yes!" he scrambled back to the still open car and flailed about, tossing the map, empty Styrofoam cups and the remains of the airbags out of the way, rooting about for his phone in a flurry of activity. "Got it!" He emerged, a little ruffled, clutching his phone triumphantly. "Hang on..." He stood and waved the phone about, high over his head, shifting his weight from foot to foot as though he was in need of a bathroom.

"What the hell are you doing?" Hiram asked.

"Getting signal."

"That is not gonna get you signal. You might make it rain..." Hiram sighed and pulled his own phone from his jacket pocket. "I don't have signal either. We are in the middle of nowhere."

"Damn!" Leroy stopped his awkward phone waving and stamped his foot on the ground. "Sorry. I just... this is my point about technology, you put too much trust in it..."

"Well, we aren't gonna get any signal if we stay here, maybe if you walk up a little higher you could get some. I can just stay here with the car."

"What? I'm not leaving you out here! It's OK. It's fine, we can't be that far from the road, I can carry you back the way we came and then we can follow the road back to that house we passed earlier."

Hiram let out a weak laugh. "That's got to be about three miles away. You're gonna carry me all that way?"

A look of deep concern crossed Leroy's face as he observed the injured man struggling to sit up. He stooped down to help. "If that's what I have to do then yes." He said firmly.

Hiram finally sat up, clutching at Leroy for support. His eyes ranged over his worse-for-wear looking husband, his poor battered Honda, and his very sorry-looking left leg. As he scanned their bleak surroundings he caught sight of something; a tiny light twinkling through the trees to their left. It was up high but it was no star; it was of man-made origin. As he stared up at it, a figure seemed to form around it. Large and shadowy, a great house was visible through the trees, hunched over like a crouching predator, with flying buttresses jutting out from its body. He could see a few lights shining out of the windows.

"There's a house over there!" he said, pointing awkwardly over Leroy's shoulder. Leroy span around and his face lit up as he too made out the shape of the large house through the trees.

"Aha! See, It's fine, it's going to be fine! I mean the car is a write off but at least we aren't stuck out here."

"Yeah, everything's great. Other than the car and my leg." Hiram hissed.

"Come on you big baby." Leroy wrapped his arms around a protesting Hiram and lifted him off the ground. "Let's go disturb the poor people who live in that house. I'm sure they'd love to enjoy the company of a sarcastic old man and his poor beleaguered husband."

* * *

Leroy struggled up over the crest of the hill, arms wrapped securely around Hiram as he carried him bridal style. He huffed out a breath through tired lungs, struggling to hide his exhaustion.

Up close the house was perhaps more foreboding that it had been from the bottom of the hill. It's roof was covered with little decorative towers that looked rather like awkward splinters of bone poking through its sleek black-tiled back. With its flying buttresses jutting out like spindly limbs, it seemed as though it was preparing to heft itself up from its position on the cliff and scuttle off into the woods.

"Here we are!" He puffed, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

"Yeah. We certainly are. I had no idea there was a house out here." Hiram frowned up at the house, with an expression of distaste. "It's a little..."

"Gothic?" Leroy supplied, with a weak grin.

"Creepy."

"Yes..." Leroy adjusted his grip on the man in his arms and continued his trudge up the path towards the house. He eyed a particularly overgrown patch of thorns that was reaching out across the cracked paving. "It's not all that well looked after is it? It's got potential though, I could do some great things with it."

"Hmm." Hiram raised his eyes to one of the windows, where a dim light was shining. The slightest flicker of a shadow passed across it, before the light was extinguished. He suppressed a shudder as they drew up to the doors of the house. Having been in the presence of the place for all of 5 minutes, he had already decided he didn't care for it much. The whole place had the air of somewhere a young blond girl might get murdered in the opening of a horror movie.

"No signal up here either. It's weird, we're so high up you'd think..." Hiram trailed off, feeling Leroy's unease in the way his arms tightened their grip.

"Could you knock on the door my sweetness? My hands are a little full." Leroy asked.

Hiram awkwardly extracted his arm from the other man's grip and rapped on the door. The sound echoed through the great hollow carapace of the house. They waited for a long moment, listening intently.

Hiram raised his hand and knocked again, more firmly this time.

"Give them a minute! It's a big house, you don't have to keep knocking." Leroy admonished. The two of them stood in a semi-awkward silence for what Hiram counted in his head to be 2 and a half minutes.

"Gah!" Hiram snapped and banged on the door until it made his husband wobble dangerously from the force.

"Would you calm down! There's obviously no one in." Leroy hefted the other man up a little higher in his arms and drew him away from the door, leaving his arm flailing impotently as it tried to continue its barrage of knocks.

"There is someone in! I saw them! They turned out a light!" Hiram squawked, half in indignation, half from the pain shooting through his leg.

"You did?" Leroy frowned, puzzled. "Well they must have heard us knock."

"Let me try the door."

"What? No! We can't just walk in there!"

"What else do you suggest? You can't carry me much further. Pretend all you want, I can tell you're struggling. So either we wait for this guy to let us in, or we go in now. We are not gonna make back to the road." Hiram said through laboured breaths. "Not to mention my leg hurts like a mother-"

"I know, I know!" Leroy spluttered. "OK, we'll try the door. We'll just call out to whomever is in there as we go in and they'll have to come down and give us some help."

Hiram pushed down on the gnarled door handle tentatively. It creaked and groaned in protest, but finally gave way under his hand and the door swung open.

"So, the guy is rude, can't look after his house and doesn't lock the door. Can't wait to meet him..." Hiram muttered.

Leroy crossed the threshold into the house slowly.

The entrance hall was large and open, lit only by the weak light of the moon. The place appeared to be moderately clean, no cobwebs or dust, the floor looked as though it had not long ago been cleaned. The tiles were faded, but clearly they had once been quite spectacular, with a great coat of arms spread out across the floor, showing a lion, a ram and a wild boar, with an ornate crown at the top. It looked as though they had faded not from being walked on a great deal, but from being bleached by the sun shining in through the high windows for many summers. Carpeted in deep red, the stairs stood opposite the door, leading up in two directions into the rest of the house, like a great lolling tongue in a cavernous mouth.

"Hello?" Leroy called out, his voice wavering. "Hello! Anyone in? We had a little accident-"

"Little?" Hiram cut in incredulously.

Leroy shushed him. "We've had an accident out in the woods. My husband's hurt and we can't get any signal out here. We need to call for some help. Hello?" The only reply was the sound of his own voice echoing back in the large empty entrance hall. "See, there's no one in! Can we please just go hunker down in the barn until morning? I think I could carry you back down to the road if I just have a rest."

"Don't be ridiculous. We'll look for a phone. If we just make a quick call, we can go wait outside for some help." Hiram insisted.

"Look, Hiram, this place is really making me feel uneasy OK? I mean I never knew there was a house out here and its _huge_ so how could I not? And you know how I feel about these woods. There's a reason we went all the way to Kaniksu to take Rachel camping." Leroy looked pleadingly down at the man in his arms, whose expression quickly went from sympathetic to exasperated.

"This isn't about that Colville monster is it?" Hiram asked.

"The Beast of Colville Forest." He corrected. "And yes, It is about that!"

"That thing is as real as the Loch Ness Monster, OK?" Hiram snapped wriggling until Leroy lowered him down onto the bottom step of the grand staircase.

"Why would you say that?" Leroy said, straight-faced. "you know I believe in Nessie."

Hiram scowled up at his pouting husband and stretched his leg out with a hiss of pain. "There's no beast and if there was, I doubt it would live in a secluded cliff-top mansion. Unless you also believe that Bigfoot has a nice log cabin in Montana."

"Don't be facetious."

"I'm not, because there is no beast, so mocking the existence of the beast is not facetious. Is that why you wouldn't leave me in the car? Because you know it would have been a lot easier if you'd just left me there and gone back down the trail to that house we sa-" Hiram stopped talking abruptly. A soft growl broke through the silence of the entrance hall, and both men froze in place at the sound. Leroy very slowly turned his head, to be met with a pair of bright yellow eyes watching him from the shadows near the doorway. With a sudden blood curdling snarl, the creature launched itself out of the darkness towards them. It was two foot tall, tan coloured and fluffy, but with a mouthful of very sharp teeth and paws studded with sharp little claws.

"Ahh!" Leroy staggered back from where the enraged bobcat stood yowling at them in the middle of the entrance hall, its back arched and its fur puffed up so much it looked a great deal bigger than any bobcat had a right to be. Leroy hastily positioned himself in front of his injured husband, hoping the angry little predator didn't smell blood.

The bobcat hissed and growled in apoplectic rage, clawing at the air with its paw.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Hiram squeaked "Son of a-"

"Shoo!" Leroy said, with some authority. He puffed out his chest, making himself look as big as he could, which was considerably bigger than the bobcat. "Go on, go away!" The cat tried to circle round him, presumably, in his mind, to try to eat Hiram. He aimed a firm kick at it. It leapt away, with a scandalized yelp and swiped at his leg.

The cat continued to hiss and make swipes at them, while Leroy, with slightly less confidence, continued to kick out at it. After a few moments of awkward posturing from the pair, the bobcats ears flattened back and its eyes widened, before it let out a softer hiss and turned tail and fled down a side hall.

"What the fuck was that!" Hiram exclaimed, struggling to stand, clutching the ornate rams head that decorated the balustrade.

"I don't know, its was weird..." Leroy turned, but seemed struck dumb. His mouth formed a perfect 'o' of horror and his body went tense. A growl, deeper and more menacing than that of the little bobcat cut through the air. Hiram turned slowly, following his husbands line of sight. A new pair of eyes stared out of the darkness, green and a good deal higher than those of the cat. The figure, just visible in the shadows was at least eight feet tall, and wider than any man. Its growl was deep enough to shake bones and its snout, just visible in the light, held enormous fangs.

The two men had just a moment to regret entering the house, before the beast pounced.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

23rd November 2011

The foyer of Colville police station was typically a quite place. The town was isolated and was home to just four and a half thousand people. As a result, outside of household disputes, rowdy parties and petty theft, there was little to concern the local police. However, on this particular chilly fall morning, the policewoman behind the desk did in fact look rather concerned. A small, dark haired young woman was stood at the desk, hands on hips, loudly berating any police officers who happened to pass by.

The young woman was Rachel Berry. Just 19 years old, she was a recent graduate of the local high school, where she had enjoyed years of both ridicule and admiration as the leader and star performer of the schools glee club. Her extreme dedication to any and all tasks she took on had paid off well and led to the club winning the national championships for the first time ever during her senior year. This great dedication had led to her being accepted to New York's Tisch school of performing arts, which, as her fathers never grew tired of telling anyone who would listen, was the most prestigious in the country. At that current moment however, her acting, singing and academic talents, couldn't have been further from the mind of the tired policewoman she was scolding.

"I don't understand how you can sit there and tell me there's nothing you can do! My fathers were supposed to return three days ago. Three! And you tell me you can't send anyone out to find them! This is a travesty, of- of- epic proportions! You have time to go around town handing out fines for littering, but you won't investigate missing people! I am going to get in touch with my lawyer. And the FBI." Rachel lifted her chin in a defiant pose and stared down the bemused police woman.

"Look, Rachel-" The woman began.

"Don't you Rachel me _Officer __O'Hara_!" She snapped. Her hair was falling across her face, but she didn't move from her position, with her hands firmly planted on her hips.

"Miss Berry, we've called in some people from out of state to look into this, but there really isn't anything we can do. Your dads were driving all the way back from Portland and there's no way to know exactly what happened, it's real unlikely that a search in the local area is gonna turn anything up. I'm sorry that you don't know where your dads are OK, but it's out of our hands." Officer O'Hara gave Rachel a sympathetic, if slightly exasperated, look.

Rachel's lower lip wobbled and she looked so close to tears that Officer O'Hara half rose out of her seat to go comfort the girl. However, before she could move out from behind the desk, Rachel stamped her foot on the ground, turned around with an irritated 'humph' and stomped over to the little row of plastic chairs to resume her waiting. She had already been at the station for three hours that day, and didn't seem inclined to leave.

Officer O'Hara couldn't help but feel for the girl. She was a real handful, loud and pushy and _irritating _at times, but she really did love her parents. Heck, everyone loved those guys, even the more conservative members of the town. They were nice guys and for all that Rachel was hard work, she was also sweet and after all that trouble with the local kids egging her house she brought cookies to the station every week for a couple of months. Egg free off course.

But there was obviously no way Rachel was going to leave the station without a fight, and knowing the girl she would probably want to spend the whole of the next day there as well, unless her parents were found. That was all very well and good, except for the fact that the next day was Thanksgiving, and Maddie O'Hara did not much fancy having to deal with being occasionally berated by Rachel when she'd rather be enjoying a turkey dinner in the back with Detective Benson. She slowly stood up from behind her desk and surreptitiously walked into the back room.

From her position on the cracked plastic chairs, Rachel craned her neck to see where the policewoman had gone. She heard a hushed voice coming from the back room, but the words were unclear. After a few minutes, Officer O'Hara returned to her desk, with a barely masked look of guilt on her face. Rachel fidgeted in her seat. Clearly nothing good was going to come from the other woman's trip to the back room.

Rachel's fears were confirmed when, 10 minutes later, Finn Hudson walked into the police station. Rachel glared at Officer O'Hara, with a look of betrayal.

"That was a very low move Maddie." She said. The policewoman had the good grace to look ashamed.

"Rachel... what are you still doing here?" Finn loped over to where she was seated. "This isn't gonna make them find your dads any quicker."

"You don't know that." Rachel said stiffly.

"Yeah, I kinda do. I mean, all your doing is annoying Officer O'Hara, and she can't do anything to help you. Just... It's thanksgiving tomorrow. You can come to my mom's. She'll get that sh- stuff you eat. Tofu. We could make it into the shape of a turkey?" Finn gave her an awkward, lopsided grin that was not returned.

"I'm not in the mood for thanksgiving Finn, because I have _nothing _to be thankful for." Rachel stood and pushed her way past Finn. She stormed over to the exit and Finn followed doggedly behind.

"So do you want me to give you a lift over to mine? I don't think you should be alone tonight." Finn rested a hand on her shoulder, but Rachel shrugged it off.

"I'm going home Finn. I have to be in, in case my dads get back." She wrenched open the door to her little red VW Beetle, that her dads had bought for her just a few months ago as a graduation present, and climbed in.

She floored the gas pedal and left a deeply concerned Finn standing in the dust.

As she drove home, somewhat blinded by tears, she couldn't help but feel it was a low blow indeed to call in her childhood sweetheart and _ex_-boyfriend to manipulate her into leaving when she was in such a fragile emotional state.

* * *

Thanksgiving arrived with little fanfare. Rachel awoke at 6am, partly from habit and partly because her sleep had been light and fitful ever since her parents had disappeared. She showered and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, ironed her fathers clothes and vacuumed the whole house. She set the table for dinner and loaded the tofurkey into the oven, but didn't turn it on.

Once everything was just-so, ready for thanksgiving, she sat on the stairs.

She sat. And sat. Until the street-lights outside were lit, until the room became so dark she could no longer see. She didn't eat or move from her spot on the stairs unless it was a quick trip to the bathroom or for a drink. She didn't move, because that was the best spot to be in when her fathers returned.

But they didn't. The 24th slipped into the 25th , then the 26th, and still they didn't return. The tofurkey sat in the oven, uneaten.

The phone rang on and off, but the first two times Rachel answered it, anxious and desperate, hoping for news, it turned out to only be Finn. She let it go to answer-phone and listened to messages from Finn, her aunt, her room-mate back in New York and Officer O'Hara, all concerned and asking for her to call back. She didn't move from her position on the stairs.

The 27th dawned and saw Rachel making a reluctant trip to the kitchen for something other than the orange juice she had been subsisting on. She made a sandwich. She ate sitting on the stairs.

As the sun began to set on her 4th day of waiting, the 7th day since her fathers went missing, the phone rang again. It went to voice-mail. Detective Benson's deep, rumbling voice filled the silent house. Rachel froze.

"Rachel, it's Detective Benson here, you gotta get down to the hospital sweetie, your dads down here, he showed up an hour ago apparently, got a broken leg and-" The detective stopped abruptly as Rachel snatched up the phone.

"Hello? Detective Benson?" Rachel's voice cracked a little from under-use. Normally that would have been a cause of great concern for Rachel; her voice was a precious instrument after all. However, today she didn't even notice, she simply cleared her throat. "Where is he? Are they both there? Are they OK?"

"Rachel, calm down. Your dads here. Hiram. There's no sign of your other dad. Your dad says- Hiram that is- he says that- well he's been saying a whole bunch of crazy stuff. I think he's a little delirious, they've got him on a drip and he's sleeping. His leg was broken but other than that- and, and the crazy talk- he seems fine. He's at Colville general, I can send Officer O'Hara down there to pick you up if you want?" Detective Benson waited for a response. He cleared his throat. "Rachel?"

"So, there's no sign of daddy?" she said in a very small voice.

"Nothing yet, we've sent out some search teams into the woods, but its a big area. We won't get anywhere until your dad's well enough to give us some details to help us refine the search. Do you want Maddie to come get you?" Detective Benson's deep, gruff voice was uncharacteristically soft, as though he was talking to a nervous, injured wild animal.

"No that's fine thank you. I'll be there in 20 minutes."

* * *

Rachel sat in the waiting room at Colville general. It was strange that after days and days of waiting patiently, she was feeling incredibly impatient now that she knew her dad was just down the hall. Her foot tapped rapidly against the floor and she twitched nervously every time a doctor or nurse passed by.

A fresh faced young doctor walked purposefully up the hall towards her.

"Miss Berry?"

"Yes!" Rachel leapt up eagerly.

"Your father is ready to see you now." The doctor said in a hushed voice. Rachel moved as though to get past her, but she held out an arm to stop her. "Before you go in, I just wanted to warn you, your father has obviously been through a very stressful time. A lot of the things he's been saying to the staff are a little... well for you it might be upsetting to see him this way. He's fine physically, he just isn't really making any sense right now. He needs rest and I would advise you not to say anything that could upset him."

Rachel felt a wave of anger at the idea that seeing her could upset her father. She wanted to shout at this woman for telling how she should behave around her own family. But she didn't. She just nodded sharply and walked silently down the hall towards her fathers room.

She rested a hand on the door handle and took a few deep breaths, as though preparing herself for a big performance. She entered the room silently and took quiet measured steps across the room to her fathers bed.

The room was dimly lit and silent. Her father lay there, the sheets drawn up neatly around him. His hand hung listlessly off the edge of the bed.

"Dad?" She whispered. She had intended to throw herself into his arms dramatically, its what she usually did when either of them were upset. It always made him laugh and call her his little drama llama. It didn't really seem to fit the situation this time though, with daddy still missing and her dad looking so sad and lost.

"Rachel!" he wheezed. He struggled to sit up but Rachel pushed him gently back down and clutched at his hand.

"Dad, what happened. You've been gone for a week! The police won't tell me anything." She squeezed his hand.

His eyes closed slowly and he let out a shuddering breath.

"We got lost. Out in the woods. We- we had a crash. I hurt my leg. We saw a house up on the hill. The house..." Hiram started to cry in earnest and lifted his other hand to cover his face. Rachel squeezed his hand again, to reassure him and to stop her own body from trembling. It was jarring to see her dad break down in such a way. Her family had always been an honest one, they were never afraid to share their emotions, but nonetheless, she couldn't recall ever seeing her father cry like this.

He tried again. "We went up the hill to the house so we could call for help. Your daddy carried me up there, my leg was bad. When we go up there it was... wrong. I knew there was someone in the house- something- but it didn't answer when we knocked. So we went in anyway. It's all my fault."

He started to cry again, horrible wracking sobs.

"Shh. It's not your fault dad." Rachel said, awkwardly stroking his hair. Of course she had no idea if it was really his fault or not, it just felt like the right thing to say.

After a few minutes Hiram seemed to compose himself, though tears still continued to leak from the corners of his eyes.

"We went in and that's when we got attacked. It was this bobcat or a lynx or something and it came out hissing and _crazy_. Your daddy scared it off, or- or we thought he'd scared it off. But it wasn't us. It was-" Her fathers eyes suddenly went wide and a look of horror crossed over his face. "It was horrible Rachel!" He cried, suddenly no longer listless but struggling to sit up and clutching at her. "It was eight feet tall and it was, it, it was horrible! It was like a lion, but it was as big as a bear."

Hiram was shaking, his breaths coming out in quick, pained puffs.

"Dad, please, you aren't well, you have to calm down." Rachel said as softly as she could. She gently pushed him back down onto the bed and disentangled his hands from her sweater.

"It wouldn't let us leave..." Her father murmured, suddenly placid again.

"Dad... I don't- Dad that can't be- it can't be true." She said, blinking back her tears. She couldn't make any sense out of this. If it had been her daddy telling her this she was sure it would have been a little easier to understand. He believed in some slightly silly things, like the luck damaging effects of broken mirrors, or that he had a certain pair of underpants that were in some way lucky. But her dad wasn't like that. He made a point to always point out the flaws in daddy's explanations for how the government was covering up the existence of Bigfoot. He certainly didn't believe in monsters.

"I know, I know. They don't believe me. They shouldn't... I shouldn't be telling you this. I shouldn't have told anyone. Oh god what if they go out there and find the house..." His breathing went ragged again. Rachel resumed stroking his hair and shushed him. There didn't seem to be much else she could do for him, he was so caught up in a horrifying world of his own.

"It let me go, but it said-" He took a few deep breaths. "It said that it had to keep your daddy there, at the house. It said if we left we would tell the police and they would come looking for it."

"It spoke to you?" Rachel asked cautiously.

"Yes. It locked us in a room and told us we couldn't go because we would tell people about it. It was so big, its teeth..."

"You're sure it wasn't human?" Rachel could feel her heart thumping a rapid drum beat in her chest, the noise was loud in her ears.

"Yes. Rachel, it had horns, it was eight feet tall, it was no human."

"And it definitely spoke?"

"Definitely."

"Why did it let you leave?"

A look of shame crossed over her fathers face. "I didn't want to leave him. But he was so desperate for me to go! My leg was broken and he couldn't set it and he was so worried he begged for the beast to let one of us leave. It said I could go, to get my leg fixed, but I couldn't come back and if I told anyone, if the police or the government came to the house it would kill him." a few more tears ran down his cheeks, but his sobs seemed to mostly have subsided.

"You're sure about this? There's no way you could be mistaken?" Rachel watched her fathers face closely.

"There's no way. You know me Rachel, I never believed in all that stupid stuff, 'the beast of Colville', I never believed any of it. But its real. I don't know what to do." He said. His eyes didn't leave hers. She felt her legs go weak.

"I believe you." She said. Her father reached up and wrapped her up in his arms.

"What can we do?" he whispered. Rachel held on to him tighter. She had no idea how to answer that question.

"Dad, where is this house?" she asked as she leant back out of his embrace.

"It's out in the forest. On the cliff edge, it looks out over the town. It must be to the east of the town, off a side trail on route 20."

Rachel nodded slowly.

"Rachel, no! You are not going anywhere near there. That thing is dangerous! It threatened to kill your father! If you go down there it could do it!" Hiram struggled as though he wanted to get out of bed but Rachel stopped him and settled him back down on the bed.

"Don't worry dad. I won't do anything stupid. Just get some rest please. And don't talk about this to the police, OK? They think your a little touched in the head because of all this. And if they do believe you and go looking..."

Her father nodded in understanding. "Of course." he said.

"Please get some sleep. I'll think of a way out of this, OK?" She stood and headed over to the door. She glanced back and saw that her father had his eyes closed. He looked as though he could be sleeping, but his brow was furrowed and she knew he was only pretending.

* * *

After her visit to the hospital Rachel returned home. She took a quick shower when she realised (to her horror) that it had been 4 days since she last had one and made herself another sandwich when she realised just how hungry she was. As she was tipping the remains of the smelly uneaten tofurkey into the bin, she was struck by a plan.

She would find the house. She would go in and she would find the room her daddy was locked up in. She would let him out and they would get the hell out of there.

All in all, it wasn't the best plan she had ever had, though neither was it the worst. It was just a little skinny on the details. She decided that she would just come up with the finer details on the job, she had always been a master of improvisation.

Realizing that perhaps a late night trip to the woods, and a house that apparently contained a quite horrible monster was not the best idea, she headed to bed. She felt cruel knowing that every hour she spent sleeping was another hour her daddy had to spend stuck in the woods.

She was asleep just moments after her head hit the pillow.


End file.
